The Unfortunate Truth
by Blaze X
Summary: After a doctor in a mutant prison is killed it is discovered that she was experimenting on the mutants. Professor Xavier sends Storm, Wolverine, and Emma Frost to investigate to find out if the Doctor was working with anyone, and if she was bring them down. Are they prepared for what they might discover?
1. X-periment

Mutant experimentation is far from unheard of. It's a fact that is either unfortunate or barely worth noticing depending on what the individual thinks of mutants. The reasons for this vary from wanting to turn mutants into weapons to wanting to create the ultimate mutant, but there are also those who simply do it because they can. Whatever the reasoning was it was something the X-Men, especially Wolverine, were against, so when it had come up that a doctor was recently killed in a mutant prison had been experimenting on mutants the X-Men wanted to investigate to see if she was acting alone or if she was working with someone.

Professor Xavier selected Emma Frost and Storm to go investigate. Wolverine insisted he come as well, and he was very stubborn about it so Xavier agreed. He had called ahead to the prison letting them know what was going on, so there wouldn't be any surprises and there would be full cooperation between the prison staff and the X-Men.

The three X-Men, well two X-Women and Wolverine, left post haste and arrived a mere two hours after their departure time. Having a fast jet did have its advantages. Having a jet with vertical takeoff and landing also had its advantages since it allowed them to land right in the prison yard without any problems. Our extraordinary heroes were greeted by the warden upon exiting their jet. He led them to a room where prison staff who knew anything about the departed doctor were. There weren't many.

Emma looked around. "You two can start questioning the people in this room." She told Storm and Wolverine. "I'll talk to the prisoners that were experimented on."

Wolverine glared at Emma. "You're kidding right? Questioning the staff is clearly a one person job. I'll go with you Frost."

"Your mere presence will make my job difficult."

"Your self assigned job." Wolverine was getting ready to pop his claws, but the sudden drop in temperature stopped him.

"That's enough from both of you." Storm calmly told them. The temperature went back to where it was before. "The prisoners will most likely be less cooperative, so it's best that Emma be the one to question them; it will be more difficult for her to get in there minds if they are scared of you. You should know this Logan."

"He's just trying to pick a fight." Emma said. "No surprise really. It's a base instinct of his."

"Go question the prisoners, Emma." Storm ordered her.

"That's what I've been trying to do." Emma remarked before going to another room where she would do her questioning.

"Do you really need me in here Ororo?" Logan asked. He knew she could handle this on her own, but he also knew she might prefer to keep him in here so she could keep him from causing trouble.

"Is there anything you intended to do?"

"Yeah I wanted to find out about the two prisoners that were involved with the Doc's murder. I think there's a chance they know something about her."

"They both escaped though."

"If anyone can track them down it's me."

"This is true. Okay, go ask about them."

Wolverine walked over to the warden. "What can you tell me about the prisoners that killed Doctor Lynn?"

"Well one seemed to want to protect her until he found about what she was doing, while the other wanted to kill her from the beginning. He was extremely persistent."

"What were their names?"

"Oh right that would be far more useful wouldn't it? The one initially trying to protect her was Wade Wilson, and the extremely persistent one was Victor Creed."

"I'm somehow not surprised by that." Wolverine sat down and pulled out his phone. Finding Deadpool would be easy. He always announced everything he was doing on twitter. After a few minutes of browsing through pointless stuff about eating chimichangas and something about Scrooge McDuck he found what he was looking for. Apparently Deadpool was now living in Seattle with some old friend of his.

Storm finished up her questioning of the prison staff determining that none of them really knew anything about Dr. Lynn. Apparently she never socialized and was very secretive. Storm had a feeling that this would be the case. It still didn't hurt to ask though.

Emma wasn't having much luck either. All she really got from probing through the prisoner's minds was exactly what kind of experiments were ran on the them. After she was done she was going to give the details to Beast, and see if he could extrapolate anything useful from them. She finished her questioning then walked back to where the others were. "I have no idea if anything I got was useful. I'm going to send the details of the experiments to Hank and see if he can get anything of use from them. What about you two?"

"No one knew the Doctor personally, so I didn't get anything useful." Storm answered.

"Deadpool and Sabretooth were the two who killed her. They might know something, and I already found Deadpool." Wolverine answered. "If you two are willing to go question him on your own I can start tracking down Sabretooth."

"How did you find Deadpool so fast?" Storm asked him.

He showed her his phone with Deadpool's twitter page still pulled up. "He makes it easy."

"Social media does make finding people so much easier now." Emma commented. She didn't have a problem with it. In recent years they had managed to find several mutants because of tumblr.

"There are still some people that stay off the grid though. Which is why you have me."

"It is also why we have Cerebro." Storm said. "And I would prefer if someone else found and questioned Sabretooth. Whenever you two meet things get very violent very fast, which will just be counterproductive."

"Then who will go after him?"

"I'll do it." Emma volunteered.

"Like you would be able to deal with him."

"If he tries to kill me I can either turn to diamond, or forcefully stop him with telepathy. I think I'm actually better equipped to handle him than you are."

Wolverine growled. "Fine."

"I will call the professor when we get back on the jet."

The three X-People left the prison, getting on the Black Bird to go to Seattle. Storm called Xavier on the way there, and asked if he could find Sabretooth. In the past finding Sabretooth telepathically has proven difficult, but Xavier had recently managed to come up with a few tricks for finding mutants as difficult as him. He still couldn't use these tricks to find Magneto while he was wearing his helmet, but they were still extremely useful.

"I found him. He's currently in what appears to be a mutant fight club in Reno." Xavier informed them. "Keep me informed of anything important that comes up." He told them then hung up.

Storm readjusted their flight, so they would be going to Reno. "We'll drop you off there then go to Seattle." She told Emma.

"Alright." Emma said then went to the back of the plane to suit up.

Within an hour the plane had landed in Reno about a mile from where the fight club was, so they wouldn't alert the members of the club to their arrival. Emma got off the plane and started heading toward her destination. Once she was a safe distance from the jet it took off again heading to Seattle.

Another hour later and the remaining X-Duo landed just outside of Seattle. They wanted to remain inconspicuous, so they remained in their civilian clothes. They took Wolverine's motorcycle into the city. They didn't know exactly where Deadpool was, so they drove around until Wolverine caught his scent then followed it.

When they found Deadpool he was waiting in line at a taco truck. Wolverine parked his bike nearby before he and Storm got off.

Deadpool noticed their approach. "Hey Logan, thus must be a special occasion. You hardly ever visit."

"That's because you're a complete pain to deal with. And this isn't a social visit, so don't go thinking that."

"Aww I love you too."

Wolverine popped his claws in warning. "Be serious."

"You should know that isn't possible."

Storm decided to interject now. "Wade, we would like to speak to you about your time in prison."

"Well I can tell you right now it was not like the movies. After I get my taco I'll tell you more about it. Until then why don't you sit over there with my friend?" He pointed over to a bench where a woman with short messy black hair, pale skin, and a lot of muscle was sitting. She was wearing ripped up jeans, a red shirt, a black leather jacket and a pair of aviator shades.

"You actually have friends?" Wolverine asked clearly surprised.

"It's just as plausible as you having friends."

Wolverine rolled his eyes before walking off. The less he had to talk to Deadpool the better. Storm followed him and sat on the bench next to Deadpool's friend with Wolverine standing next to her. Storm turned to the woman to introduce herself. "Hello, I am Ororo."

The other woman turned to her. "You're one of the X-Men aren't you?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"Seen you on the news. You have very distinctive features. I'm assuming your runty friend here is another member."

"What'd you call me?" Wolverine asked, the insult a reminder of Sabretooth who used it all the time.

"Would you prefer short-stack or midget?"

Wolverine growled at her.

She chuckled in response.

Deadpool finally walked over to them carrying two tacos. He handed one to his friend. "One taco with all the meats for you." He handed one of the tacos to his as of yet not named friend. "And one with extra hot sauce for me." He sat down between Storm and the other woman. He noticed the scowl on Wolverine's face. "Oh did you want one? You should have said something earlier buddy."

"I'm not dignifying that with a response."

"Isn't that a response?"

"Wade please, could you tell us about your time in prison?" Storm asked. "Particularly about the Doctor."

"Yeah I can do that. First thing you need to know is that the Doctor was hot."


	2. First Rule of Mutant Fight Club

Whoever created the fight club that Emma was currently in must not have understood that underground meant illegal not literally underground. Either that or they had a weird sense of humor. The point was Emma was in the basement of one of the casinos. There was a large cage in the middle where the fights took place with bleachers on one side for better viewing. There was a bar on the opposite side, and tables with chairs scattered around everywhere else. As Emma entered a fight was just finishing up. The winner was the very mutant she was here to find.

"Once again the winner is the Savage Sabretooth." Was said by the announcer. "Does anyone here think they can challenge him?"

No one seemed too keen on fighting him, with good reason, until after a few moments someone did step up. He was either very brave or very dumb. He was 5'7 and very lean, making the match look like it was going to be very one sided, however there was no way of knowing what the kid's power was just by looking at him.

The bell rang and the fight started. The challenger activated his powers and created orange energy knifes on his hands. Sabretooth slashed at him, but the kid jumped back to dodge then he slashed at Sabretooth's hand. A few fingers were chopped off, and the attack left behind a nasty burn.

 _Finally someone landed a hit on him._ Emma heard someone think. She turned her attention to this person's thoughts specifically.

Sabretooth's fingers began growing back. While that was happening he slashed at the kid with his other hand, but was more mindful the energy knives. This time when the kid tried to slice his hand off he moved out of the way in time. By this point his fingers had completely grown back.

 _So that's how fast he heals._

Sabretooth grabbed the kid's wrist with his now healed hand then threw him against the cage. The kid didn't get up after that.

Sabretooth left the cage; he was done fighting for today. Emma was by the cage door when he left. "What have I done to warrant the X-Men's attention this time?"

"Straight to the point, I like it." Emma said before actually answering. "You killed a prison doctor a few days ago."

"I would think you would be appreciative of that all things considered."

"You would think that. I'm not going to do anything to you for that. I just need to know if you knew anything about the Doctor. We're trying to find out if she was working with anyone."

"Why would I know that? All I know is someone wanted her dead and was willing to pay a lot to see it happen."

 _Now he's talking to Emma Frost. I should double check to see if we have a telepath before bringing her in._

"I believe someone is planning on capturing us or you at least." Emma informed him. "Apparently there is a chance that they already have a telepath."

Sabretooth quickly glanced around the room for anyone suspicious and spotted someone who was paying more attention to him than what was normal. "I think I can handle him if he tries anything."

"I have no reason to stick around then." Emma stood up then began to leave, but as she approached the stairs a pink light hit her and she disappeared in the blink of an eye. The man who had been watching them was now standing up with an arm outstretched toward where Emma just was.

"Neat trick. You gonna try that on me?" Sabretooth prepared for the inevitable fight.

"Who said anything about trying?" The man created a small pink javelin made of light. "I know for a fact I'm going to beat you." He threw the javelin.

Sabretooth dodged the javelin causing it to hit and teleport a chair. "Maybe you should try harder." He lunged at his attacker who teleported behind him. Sabretooth quickly turned around just in time to dodge a few more javelins. "Are you trying to put me to sleep?"

"Even if you do keep dodging my attacks, you will tire out eventually."

"No I won't." Sabretooth crouched down waiting for the just the right time to pounce. As soon as the other began creating another javelin he attacked. His attacker had no time to react and died as soon as his head was slammed into the ground. As Sabretooth stood up he noticed something roll out of his victim's pocket. It was a pill bottle. He picked it up to get a closer look. In a large font it said MGH and below that in smaller font it said "Clarice Ferguson". He pocketed it. It was the only clue he had to whoever sent this guy to capture him.

"Turns out what they say about dropping the soap is true. Once you drop it you can't really pick it up. It keeps slipping. Oh and while you're bent over someone tries to rape you. And succeeds. Now Cable will never love me." Deadpool leaned on his friend's shoulder. "I've been defiled forever."

"Wilson, stop."

"Come on Kira it was only a joke."

Kira's only response was to stare at him harshly.

"Okay, I'll admit that was a little far even for me. So what did you want to know about my time in prison?"

"Do you know if Doctor Lynn was working with anyone?" Storm asked.

"Oh yeah she was totes working with someone. I heard her talking on the phone with someone about my blood." Deadpool looked around then whispered. "I think they might be Draculas."

"Or they're interested in exploiting mutants, particularly ones with healing factors." Wolverine told him.

"No that makes too much sense."

 _Storm, Logan, I've lost Emma._

"As nice as it was chatting with you, Deadpool, we need to go." Wolverine started walking back to his bike glad he didn't have to listen to Deadpool anymore.

"Wait, where are you going?"

"The Professor lost Emma. We now need to go back to Reno to find her." Storm answered. Wolverine was visibly upset that she told the other two this.

"Sounds fun. Hey Kira didn't you say your dad is in Reno right now?"

That was too much of a coincidence for Wolverine's taste. "Who is your dad, Kira?"

"Firstly we're not on close enough terms for you to be allowed to call me by my first name. Secondly who my father is shouldn't matter to you. This will, hopefully, be the last time we ever have to interact."

"Hey if only close friends can call you Kira does that mean the narration can't?" Deadpool asked.

"If that were actually a thing, then yes."

"Okay, yo writer, stop."

What should I call her then?

"By her codename, like everyone else with a codename. It's Black Tiger BTW."

Okay Black Tiger it is then. Happy?

"Yes."

"What was that about?" Black Tiger asked Deadpool.

"Don't worry about it." He answered then turned his attention to Wolverine and Storm. "Now that thing I was saying before. Can I come with? I've never been to Reno. Also work has been slow and I'm bored."

"Absolutely not." Wolverine answered.

"Logan, he might be helpful." Storm told him.

"Yeah and Kira can come too. She's really good at finding people and things like the TV remote I keep losing."

"Don't volunteer me for things."

"Come on we haven't had a real adventure together yet."

The song Cannibal by Ke$ha began playing. Black Tiger pulled her phone out. "I have to take this." She walked off so she could talk to whoever called her without interruption.

"I can't be the only one who finds it weird that she's into pop right?" Wolverine asked. 

"She isn't. That's the ringtone for her dad." Deadpool clarified. "The one she has for me is the Golden Girl theme song. Now about that whole me helping you guys out. I got mad skillz with a Z."

"You're also extremely annoying."

"Logan the more help we can get the better." Storm reasoned. "Even if you do find him annoying."

"What about his friend. I have no reason to trust her."

"She said she doesn't want to come anyway." Deadpool told him.

Black Tiger walked back over. "Change of plans. I'm going with you."

"Then I go back to my previous point, I don't trust you."

"Then keep a close eye on me or whatever."

"Fine I will."

"Is that settled then?" Storm asked. When no one answered she took it as a yes. "Good. Do either of you have a way to get to the jet?"

Black Tiger pointed over to a motorcycle close to Logan's. "I call her Barbara."

"Why?" Wolverine asked.

"After a dead friend of mine. It's sentimental."

Wolverine didn't know how to respond to that, so he didn't bother. He and Storm got on his bike and led the other two to the blackbird. Once they were on, they secured the bikes then took off. On the way to Reno Deadpool suited up. Black Tiger didn't have her suit, so she just removed her aviators and replaced them with a black mask that had red lenses.

They made it to Reno within an hour.

"That's what Reno looks like?" Deadpool asked while looking out the window. "I'm kind of disappointed. I was expecting something more awesome."

"You were expecting just a smaller version of Vegas weren't you?" Black Tiger asked.

"Kind of, yeah."

"Well you're probably going to be even more disappointed when we land. My dad is going to be waiting for us there."

"Anything I need to know before meeting him? Like is he one of those parents that constantly dotes on you, or is he overprotective and will hate me because he thinks something might be going on between us even though there isn't. Does he have any embarrassing stories about you? That'd be awesome. Actually even if he doesn't have any embarrassing stories it would still be nice to get to hear about your childhood."

"You already know him."


	3. Secrets and Lies but mostly secrets

Team-ups were a fairly common occurrence in the superhero community, but the X-men weren't really known to do team-ups. They would when needed but overall they had a policy of keeping humans out of mutant affairs. When it comes to Deadpool though that policy sort of goes out the window. His very existence is, after all, what happens when humans try to give other humans mutant powers making him a blur of where he should be classified: human or mutant. Xavier would say the classification is arbitrary, and there shouldn't be that kind of separation between the two groups. They are after all, ultimately, the same. Unfortunately not everyone sees it that way, and that's generally the root cause of any conflict they have.

Storm was the type of person to give others the benefit of the doubt, so if someone wanted to help her or her team she was going to let them. However if someone crossed her it would be the last time they did so.

Deadpool is one of those...for the sake of simplicity let's say heroes that teams up with other heroes all the time, so he fails to understand why anyone wouldn't want to do a team-up if given the opportunity. Sure sometimes there is a whole issue of trust, but that's a risk that has to be taken in order do things that can only be done when teaming-up with someone.

While Wolverine is also a hero that's done a lot of team-ups in the past he prefers to team-up with people he trusts. There aren't many people he does trust though, so if he's going to team-up with someone he doesn't know, they are going to have to prove themselves to him. Black Tiger has done nothing to prove herself. Quite the opposite in fact. In the few hours he has known her she has done nothing but insult him and dodge his questions. Right now though, right in front of him was the biggest reason he didn't want to trust her.

"Why didn't you mention Creed was your father?" He asked her.

"Well there are several ways I can answer that. Something tells me you won't accept any of them, so I'm not going to say anything."

"Why didn't you mention you were getting a ride with the X-men?" Sabretooth asked her.

"It didn't seem important." Black Tiger knew that was a terrible answer, so she quickly came up with some way to make it better. "That is to say you only wanted me to get here as soon as possible. Going with them was the quickest way to do so. I saw no reason to mention this." As soon as she said it she realized that her explanation didn't make it any better. She braced herself for what she feared would come next. When nothing happened she relaxed a bit, but didn't let her guard down.

Wolverine took note of her reaction and quickly understood why she didn't want to mention that Sabretooth was her father. "Guess none of that really matters. I'm going to go take a look at where Emma was when Charles lost her." He walked into the fight club to see if he could find anything.

"I saw the whole thing, Runt, she was teleported away. I killed the guy that did it when he tried to get me too." Sabretooth shouted in Wolverine's direction.

Deadpool had somehow managed to remain silent through this, probably because he was eating a burrito he had stored in one of his pouches until now. As soon as he swallowed his last bite he was his usual chatty self. "So I'm going to be honest, from what Kira told me about her dad, I was expecting someone less serial killery."

"How much did she tell you?"

"Not much now that I think about it."

"There you go then."

"Well I refuse to let this deter me from the line of questioning I had planned out." He pulled a paper out that supposedly contained the aforementioned questions, but it was actually a blank paper he pulled out for affect. "What was Kira like as a kid? Was she one of the popular girls or was she the girl the popular girls made fun of all the time? Does she have any siblings? What was her favorite toy? Who was her first crush? How did you react when she had her first crush? What was her first word? Did she say momma or dadda first? Who does she take more after you or her mom?" Deadpool stopped so he could take a breath.

"I'm not answering any of those." He took the paper from Deadpool saw it was blank then ripped it up anyway. He pulled the pill bottle he stole from his earlier victim out of his pocket then tossed it to Black Tiger. "You know more about this than I do."

She looked down at the bottle. The label didn't tell her much, just the mutant it was harvested from, so she opened it up and sniffed it. "It wasn't sold on the streets like most other batches are. I might be able to find the mutant it was made from. I just need Wi-Fi." She tossed the bottle back to Sabretooth.

"Wait when you say 'made from' do you mean like a soylent green type of scenario?" Deadpool asked being unfamiliar with MGH.

"Not exactly, though avoiding that kind of scenario is why I refuse to eat artificial foods."

"I was actually wondering about that. Seems kind of paranoid, but now that you mention it...hmm let me think about this."

Wolverine came back up from the fight club.

"Considering how many trans fats are in Americans I don't think that would be very good for you."

"What if it's not made from Americans?" Sabretooth asked.

"The hell are you talking about?" Wolverine asked having no context for their conversation.

"The philosophical ramifications of penis envy." No points for guessing who said that. (It was Deadpool).

During this bout of strangeness Storm was flying around the city on the off chance that Emma was teleported somewhere else in the city that happened to have telepathic dampeners. She also left so she could hold off on dealing with the four down on the ground. While it wasn't a very a good idea to leave Wolverine and Sabretooth alone, she made sure Wolverine understood that this was one of those rare times they would need his help. It still wasn't a one hundred percent guarantee that neither of them would start something, but it was better than nothing.

Storm landed near the others. "Emma is no longer in the city. I did not find any places that could block out the professors telepathy." She said. "Did you find anything here?" She asked Wolverine.

"Just the dead body of the one person who could've told us anything." He answered glaring daggers at Sabretooth.

Sabretooth wasn't even going to bother defending himself. He simply saw no reason to. "You don't expect me to apologize do you?"

"No, because that might actually make you a decent person."

"You're one to talk."

"Both of you stop." Storm got between them to better stop them. "Now does anyone have anything that could help?"

Deadpool slowly raised his hand.

"Wade?"

"I think Emma being kidnapped is related to your mad scientist chick. One of her buddies was probably following Sabey for awhile, and when he saw Emma decided a telepath was cooler then some loser who could heal."

"Or he made the mistake of thinking I was the easier target." Sabretooth mentioned.

"That means we do not have to prioritize, so that is good. Is there anything else?"

Deadpool raised his hand again.

"You do not have to raise your hand."

"You mean we're not in a classroom? Well I'm going to rat someone out like this is a classroom anyway. Teacher, Victor brought drugs to school and he won't share with me."

"What are you talking about?"

"He shared it with Kira, but not me. Also apparently she can tell that it wasn't sold on the street from its smell."

"You are not being very clear."

"MGH" Black Tiger spoke up. "It was made from a mutant named Clarice Ferguson. It's probably the reason they wanted a telepath and someone with a healing factor."

"I would like to see it." Storm held her hand out for the drug.

Sabretooth wasn't moving to pull it out of his pocket. He thought he could find these people on his own. It would be easier with the X-men's help though, plus even he knew better than to get on Storm's bad side. After mulling it over a bit he handed the pill bottle to her.

Storm inspected the bottle. There weren't any clues other than the mutant's name, and even that barely helped. "You said you do not think it was sold on the streets?" She asked Black Tiger.

"I didn't say I think. I know for a fact it wasn't. I've had to deal with MGH a few times in the past."

"I will show this to Hank and see what he thinks of it." She pocketed the bottle. "Is there anything else, or can we be on our way now?" No one had anything else to add. "Then we will go back to the mansion to decide what to do next."

"Sounds great. I'm not going though. I also doubt you want dad in a school full of children."

"This is true." She turned to Deadpool. " Wade, will you be going with us?"

"Try and stop me!" He immediately started running back to the blackbird.

When Emma was teleported away she rematerialized in a cell that was filled with knockout gas shortly after she arrived. Once she awoke she was strapped to lab table with several sensors hooked up to her, most of them on her head. She tried looking around but found she couldn't move.

"You're awake! Good, that means we can begin." The voice was clearly male.

She reached into his mind and looked through his eyes to get a better grip on her surroundings. The room was small and empty except for the table she was strapped to. The sensors that were hooked up to her weren't hooked to any monitors in the room, leading her to conclude that they were sending signals wirelessly to another room.

This was easy enough to get out of. She controlled the guy to go over to the table she was strapped to and undo the bindings. Once the bindings were undone she began to disconnect the sensors that were hooked up to her head, but before she could the room was gassed. She awoke back in the cell she was transported to earlier, only now she was in a bright red-orange jumpsuit.

A man wearing a deep red suit walked up to her cell. "Sorry about that test, but we had to make sure you're as powerful as the rumors said."

"How could you possibly gage how powerful I am based on that small test?" Emma tried reading his mind, but found she couldn't. There must be telepathic dampeners in here.

"We were able to measure your brain patterns when you took control of that scientist. Plus he has trained in resisting telepathy."

"What does it matter how powerful I am?"

"We need your telepathy to make things like interrogations, or teaching foreign languages easier. I can assure you everything we do is only for the betterment of humanity, and unlike the infamous Weapon X we actually mean it. We don't make weapons. Any mutant with a power that can only be used to harm is left alone by us."

"How thoughtful of you."

"Thankyou. I promise you will be well taken care of while here."

"And just where is here exactly?"

"Why not just look out your window and see for yourself?"

She turned around and looked through it. Outside was a jungle, which seemed normal enough until she saw a pteranodon flying around. "We're in the savage land."


	4. Family Bonding

In the age of information finding people is much easier than it ever has been before. It was a simple matter of Google searching their name and hoping they didn't remain anonymous everywhere on the internet. Searching for Clarice allowed Black Tiger to find her on a missing persons list. She read through all the information on Clarice including where she lived then logged off the computer and left the library.

She walked over to the bar Sabretooth was waiting for her in. She sat down next to him at the bar. "I found where she lived, but she went missing a few months ago. It's going to be hard to find where they took her."

"You sayin' you can't find her?"

"Last I checked I'm better at finding people than even you are, so no, I am not saying that."

"You're not better than me at anything and you never will be."

Black Tiger's only response was to order two shots of tequila then quickly down them both.

"You know that's not going to do anything."

"Well maybe one day my healing factor will decide it doesn't want to work, and then I'll manage to kill enough brain cells to forget most of the interactions we've ever had."

"You're only giving yourself false hope."

"...Yeah" She ordered another shot.

Another guy sat down next to her. "Hey I was wondering why you wear those sunglasses indoors. Is it because your eyes are so beautiful no mortal man can handle seeing them?"

"That is a weird question though you are half right."

"Why don't you show me which half I am right about then?"

Sabretooth already knew where this was going, and he couldn't wait for the inevitable fight that was coming.

Black Tiger turned to the guy that was trying to flirt with her and took her sunglasses off. He immediately freaked out and fell out of his seat. "What the hell are you!?"

"You are clearly living under a rock if you can't figure it out."

The bartender walked over. "No muties allowed in here. Didn't you see the sign?"

"I did. I ignored it because it was stupid and technically illegal."

He began reaching for a gun he hidden under the counter. "There's nothing illegal about wanting to keep my patrons safe."

By this point a few people had left including the guy that started this by asking to see Black Tiger's eyes. A few others had stayed simply because they wanted to see what would happen next or like Sabretooth were waiting for a fight to break out.

"Your patrons aren't the ones provoking me. They're safe for now." She noticed the bartender reaching for something under the counter and knew what it probably was, so she reached over the counter and grabbed his wrist. "This is what I was talking about with the whole provoking me thing." She then broke his wrist.

Naturally the people who frequented the bar were mad that someone broke the wrist of their favorite bar owner, and they got up to help the bartender.

 _The inevitable later_

Black Tiger was behind the bar looking through the drinks that were there. "How did this guy stay in business with such terrible booze?" She grabbed a bottle off the shelf, sniffed it then dropped on the floor right where the now dead bartender was lying.

"Apparently good service accounts for a lot." Sabretooth said. "Though that doesn't even explain anything seein' as how his service was also pretty bad."

"Well that's what happens when your patrons all die while in your bar." She knocked a few more bottles off of the shelf then looked over at what was on tap. "At least these are somewhat decent." She began emptying the taps.

"So since when are you and Wilson friends?"

"That question came out of nowhere."

"Is it wrong for a father to be interested in his daughter's life?"

"Yes. Well technically no. I mean I know you are only taking an interest because you have an ulterior motive of some kind. I don't know what you're planning, but whatever it is it won't work."

"That didn't sound very confidant. It's almost like you don't even believe what you're saying."

She stopped messing with the taps. "What do you really want?"

"You don't ask questions."

"Aren't there more important things to talk about?"

"What did I just tell you?"

"I don't ask questions."

"Good girl. Now answer my first question."

"I met him when we were hired for to steal the same thing by two different people, anyways one thing led to another and we started teaming up on a few jobs. He is currently living with me until he finds a new place for himself."

"You know he probably isn't making any plans to leave."

"That doesn't matter. We're friends he can stay as long as he wants."

"Do you even know what it means to have friends?"

"Do you?"

"Strike two. You should already know what happens with a third one."

Black Tiger tried to push away the memory of what happened the last and only time she reached three strikes, but to no avail. She turned back to the shelves so Sabretooth wouldn't see that he got to her. She took a deep breath. "I've had friends before."

"Didn't you cause all those friendships to end terribly?"

"I can break my self-destructive streak."

"No you can't." He stood up. "I know you're planning on burning this place. Do it quickly, so we can leave." He left the bar.

There were a few things Black Tiger never left home without, something to cover her eyes, a combat knife, and a box of matches. The first one was out of necessity, the second because her mother always told her to bring a knife everywhere she goes. Her mother was weird. The matches she always carried around because there was always a chance she would be in a situation where she would have to burn evidence. She wanted to minimize the chance of either her DNA or her fingerprints ending up in a database.

She knocked a few more bottles off the shelf before pulling her matches out and lighting one. She dropped it on the floor then left. Once outside she got a phone call from Deadpool. She answered. "Hey, Wade."

"Did you just use my first name? Is everything okay? Are you being held hostage? Blink once for yes twice for no."

"Don't ask stupid questions. I'm fine. Why are you calling?"

"Well I was wondering what your progress was, because like Professor X is having trouble finding Clarice."

"She lived several hours from where I am now. We're going to go see if we can find any clues there."

"Cool, cool, we're going to check out the woman mutant prison. There's a chance there's some other crazy doctor doing experiments there. I remembered it was a thing when I was doing research on women's prisons for my screenplay. Want to hear about it? It's about a young woman who was framed for murder and goes to prison, but then she escapes with the help of her prison buddies and then goes on to get revenge on the person who put her in there who plot twist is her twin sister and she framed her because she wanted to have their inheritance all to herself."

"That definitely sounds interesting. You actually did research for this?"

"Yes, mostly on twins though. Do you know any twins I can interview and/or have a threesome with?"

"Goodbye, Wilson." She hung up on him then went to find Sabretooth. He was down the block where her motorcycle was parked. He was looking over it carefully.

"What did you name this one?"

"I'd rather not say."

"Ivan? No you killed him, so that's not it. Albert? No that was the name of the last bike, so that just leaves…Barbara."

"That does not just leave Barbara. There's at least one other."

"He's not dead though. Well you definitely put more care into making Barbara than the other bikes. How did she die?"

"Died in surgery. It was a heart transplant. Her husband did everything he could to get her that heart, but it was all for nothing."

"I only asked how she died." He stopped looking at the motorcycle. "Well you are going to have to leave the bike here. We're taking my car."

Black Tiger quickly looked over Barbara to make sure Sabretooth didn't do anything to her. After inspecting her she quickly caught up to her father. "The trip is going to be about six hours."

"Do you have the route memorized?" He asked while getting into his car.

"There is absolutely no reason you need to confirm that." She got into the passenger's side. "My memory has in no way faded since the last time you needed me to use it for something."

"Oh you're still bragging about that."

"I don't know what that means."

"You're allowed to ask questions again, and it means you don't have to brag about anything. If you want to prove yourself do it with your actions."

"I'm not trying to prove myself. I don't care what anyone thinks of me, so there's no point." There was a long silence that followed. "I would prefer if this didn't end up being one of those trips where we just sit in silence. If you don't mind I'm going to turn on some music."

"As long as you don't turn on anything I don't like."


	5. Planning

When he heard they were going to be visiting a women's prison Deadpool was excited. Then they actually got there and all at once his dreams were crushed. Turns out women's prisons are exactly as sexy as men's prisons. He didn't even get to talk to any of the prisoners despite his excuse that it was to research for his screenplay. As soon as they arrived one of the prison doctors bolted. He didn't get far before Deadpool shot his knee.

The doctor was now in the X-Men's interrogation room being questioned by Wolverine. Earlier Xavier tried to get in his mind, but he was very good at resisting, and while Xavier could have easily forced his way in, that would have left some major damage. Unfortunately Wolverine's usual method wasn't working either. The doctor didn't believe Wolverine would go through with his threats, and he was right.

"Put me in coach, I think I can do it." Deadpool said to Xavier. "It will be like good cop bad cop. Except instead of a good cop it's a bad cop and instead of a bad cop it's me."

Xavier thought about this. Nothing else they've tried has gotten results, plus Deadpool's reputation would be an advantage here. "Alright, but you can't harm him."

Deadpool left without acknowledging what Xavier said and walked into the interrogation room. "Hello my name is Deadpool and I will be your interrogator this evening."

"What are you doing 'pool? I've got this covered." Wolverine asked.

" _It's okay Logan I told him he could try."_

"Fine" Wolverine left the room.

Deadpool turned his attention back to the doctor. "Hey buddy I heard you did some bad things. You want to tell me about it?"

"I haven't done anything."

"Then why did you run? Only guilty people run."

"I ran because you X-Men have a history of not liking human doctors treating mutants."

"You really think I'm an X-Man? No wait I need to focus. That's a stupid reason. You're stupid. Look I know you're working for some drug dealers that like to kidnap mutants in their spare time. What I want to know is where the base of operations, or BO as the kids are calling it, is located."

"No one calls it that, and our version of MGH is of far higher quality than your average drug dealer."

"So you are making drugs! That's illegal in most states."

"MGH isn't technically illegal. I didn't do anything wrong."

"I don't believe you." Deadpool pulled out one of his guns. "How much do you want kids?" He pointed it at the doctor's testicles.

"Look I just harvest the hormone. I give it to another guy who takes it to the main base to be refined. I'm supposed to give him a case tomorrow at noon. If you're lucky he doesn't know you guys got to me."

Deadpool put his gun away. "Thanks buddy. You've been a lot of help." He left the room and walked back to the observation room. "Did you guys see how awesome I was?"

"Would you have actually shot him?" Storm asked.

"I totally would have, and it would have been awesome. Blood everywhere. He would probably start crying or something too. What are we going to do now? Are we going to set up a drug bust? I call being the dirty cop."

"We are simply going to be at their meeting location tomorrow at noon. It is as simple as that."

"So what you're saying is I get to spend the night here?" He was jumping up and down out of excitement. "Hey Wolvie we should totes have a slumber party. We can talk about cute boys, paint each other's nails" Wolverine started walking away but Deadpool followed him. "Do each other's make up, have naked pillow fights, take personality tests, like which animal are you or which One Direction member are you or what kind of wrapping paper are you. Personally I like to think that I'm Christmas wrapping paper, you know festive but annoying any other time of year. What kind of wrapping paper do you think you are?"

"We're not having a slumber party. You're going to sleep in a guest room." They made their way to the elevator.

"I bet Cable would have a slumber party with me. Where is Cable anyway? Or any Summers for that matter?"

"They're all on vacation."

The elevator arrived on the ground floor. Deadpool looked around and noticed that there weren't as many students as usual. "How many people are related to Cyclops again?"

"Too many to count, but that's not why half the students are gone. It's Thanksgiving break and some of them do actually have families that haven't disowned them."

"But Thanksgiving was in October."

"American Thanksgiving."

"Pfft, who cares about American Thanksgiving? Americans are lame. Except Captain America; he will always hold a special place in my heart."

Wolverine rolled his eyes. "Come on." He led Deadpool to the room he would be staying in.

Deadpool looked around the room. "Wow this room is nicer than the apartment I used to live in. Though I guess anything would be better than that place." He walked over to the bathroom. "Even the bathroom is clean."

"Your last place didn't have a clean bathroom?"

"Yeah...That's why I didn't ever shower. It seemed counterproductive. Also I'm more of a bath kind of guy. There's just nothing like a candle lit bubble bath while reading a nice book."

"That is the most metro thing I've ever heard."

Deadpool put his hand on Wolverine's shoulder. "Thank you for understanding." He walked into the room and closed the door.

It was getting late, so Wolverine went to his room. They were going to have a long day ahead of them tomorrow. The chances of actually catching their guy were slim since he had access to a teleporter, but if they did get him who knows how long it would take them to get him to tell them where their base of operations was and that's if he talked at all. Wolverine refused to let any of this get to him, so while he did have trouble sleeping it was for his usual reasons. Knowing what had to happen tomorrow didn't add to his sleep troubles.

Storm was always better at relaxing than Wolverine, but she still stayed up for a while devising ways to counteract teleportation. Teleportation was one of the trickiest things to counteract, especially when they have good enough range to simply teleport away from the fight and back to their base...Light Bulb!

Storm went down to Beast's lab; he was always up late in there for one reason or another. "Hank, do you think you can help me with something?" She asked him upon entering his lab.

"Yes, of course. What do you need?"

"I need you to create a tracking device that would work worldwide and can be delivered as a bullet."

"That's an odd request, but I think I can manage it. How soon do you need it?"

"By tomorrow at noon."

"Which type of gun do you want this tracer bullet to be fired from?"

"A sniper rifle."

"I will see what I can do, but I can't make any promises, so I hope you have a backup plan."

"My backup plan is what the original plan was before I came up with this one." She told him. "Thank you for your help, Hank."

"It's not a problem. I will let know when I'm done."

The next morning when Wolverine woke up he went down to the kitchen for breakfast and found Deadpool raiding the fridge. "Looking for anything specific?"

"Yeah, where do you keep your breakfast burritos?" He continued looking through. "Eh never mind I'll just eat some cereal." He opened the pantry and pulled out a box of Cocoa Puffs. He poured them in a bowl then grabbed a carton of chocolate milk and poured that in next.

"Don't you think you're overdoing it?"

"If anything I'm under doing it." He began opening the drawers looking for the silverware. "Haven't you ever just loaded your breakfast with way more sugar than you know is good for you? Because that's basically my breakfast every day, except when it's not."

"I usually just have eggs and bacon for breakfast. I'm not a fan of sugar."

"Whatever your loss." Deadpool found a spoon and started eating. "So, what's the plan?"

"Storm's the leader you'd have to ask her." He pulled out the eggs and started making himself breakfast. When Storm entered the kitchen Wolverine grabbed a few more eggs so he could make enough for the both of them.

"Hey Stormy, what's the plan?"

"I currently have two plans. I will tell you about them after breakfast."

Wolverine finished cooking and handed a plate to Storm. While they were eating Beast came up from his lab. "It took me all night, but I finished making that tracer bullet you asked for." He told Storm while showing her the bullet, he then handed it to her. He pulled out a small device. "This will allow you to see where the bullet is, I have it linked up with satellites, so it should work on a global scale."

"Thank you."

"It was no problem at all, now if you'll excuse me I have a lot of sleep I need to catch up on." Beast left going to his room.

Shortly after that the three finished eating breakfast, so it was now time for Storm to explain her plan. "Since Beast did finish this, the plan is very simple: if the man we are going after teleports to the location, then Deadpool will shoot him with this." She held up the tracer bullet. "If not then we will have to capture and interrogate him. We will arrive at the meeting place early and observe from far away, so we know which we will have to do without tipping him off."

"Any plan where I get to shoot someone is a good plan in my book." Deadpool grabbed the bullet and pulled his sniper rifle out from seemingly nowhere.

"You're the boss." Wolverine said. "So, when do we head out?"

"As soon as we are all ready."

Within an hour they were all ready to leave. They took the Blackbird to the meeting place and landed it a good distance away. They got there half an hour before their target was scheduled to arrive and waited. Deadpool was watching the place through his sniper scope, and eventually someone teleported there.

"He teleported here. Should I shoot him now?" Deadpool asked.

"Yes, but make sure it's not lethal." Storm told him.

"That's no fun." He mumbled while aiming for the man's foot. Since he only had one chance to get this right he was taking his time to make sure he would not miss. After a few minutes he fired hitting his target perfectly. The man immediately teleported away.

Storm looked at the tracking device to see where he went. It took it a few seconds to find the tracer's signal, but when it did it showed that it was located in Antarctica. "I know these coordinates. It would appear our enemies are based in the Savage Land."

"I've always wanted to see raptors. Mostly so I can replicate one scene from Jurassic Park. I'm not going to tell you which one, but I'll give you a hint. I get to say one of the most iconic lines from the movie. Wait, before we go anywhere I should tell Kira about this. I need someone to film me." He pulled out his phone and called Black Tiger. "Hey guess what, we found where the secret base is...The Savage Land, I am totes going to replicate my fave scene from Jurassic Park. I need you to record it...What do you mean you don't want to see me get ripped apart by raptors...Okay that's cool too I guess...No promises, bye." He hung up.

"What was that about?" Wolverine asked.

"It's just us on this jurassic journey, this silurian saga, this triassic trip."

"Stop, just stop."

"But I have more."

"I don't want to hear them."


	6. Sweet Dreams

Small towns were complicated. Each one was different, so the stereotypes usually associated with small towns often don't actually apply to them. For example in this one there were a few people that were obviously mutants, walking around in broad daylight without anyone even batting an eye. Despite being over one hundred years old it was the first time Black Tiger had ever seen a community as accepting of mutants as this one. It was the weirdest thing she had ever seen.

The best place to start was Clarice's house. "Let me do all the talking." Sabretooth told Black Tiger before ringing the doorbell. She wasn't going to argue. She knew her people skills were the worst.

A man opened the door. "Hello, can I help you?"

"Yes, we've been investigating the disappearance of mutants lately and wanted to ask you a few questions about your daughter."

"Are you with the police?"

"No, we're with the X-Men actually."

"You don't look like you're with the X-Men."

"We can't exactly go everywhere in our costumes now can we?"

"No I suppose you can't. Why don't you come in, so we can talk?" He led them to the living room. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, thank you."

"Okay" He sat down. "So, why are the X-Men only now getting involved? My daughter went missing a few months ago."

"Unfortunately we only now found out about what happened. We believe she's being used to create a drug called Mutant Growth Hormone. It grants baseline humans the abilities of the mutant it was made from."

"What exactly do you mean 'made from?'"

"They would have to keep her alive if that's what you're worried about."

He breathed a sigh of relief. "What can I do to help you?"

"Whoever took her has to have the resources to keep her trapped as well as keep her alive. Has anyone who would have those kinds of resources visited your town?"

He had to think about that for a bit. "Yes, his name was Andrew Agrioli. He visited the town, because, in his words, it's a beacon of acceptance that the rest of the world should strive towards. He learned about the town through social media."

After they had finished talking to Clarice's father, Sabretooth and Black Tiger looked around the town while Sabretooth figured out what they were going to do next. While looking around Black Tiger noticed posters for missing people hanging up everywhere. She counted five different missing people including Clarice. "Agrioli must have been specifically looking for places with relatively high mutant populations."

"Doesn't matter. What matters is that he tried using me for his scheme, and I refuse to let that slide."

"You're going to find him, kill him, and then go about your merry way. I don't think you really need me for that."

"I don't, but it will be easier with your help. Why are you trying to get out of this?"

"I'm not. I just wanted to know if you were going to ditch me as soon as you knew where to look for Agrioli."

"I wouldn't. At least not without warning first. You should know by now I'm not going to abandon you like your mother did."

"No, you'll just do everything else." Black Tiger muttered under her breath.

He gave her a warning look. "Go see if you can find anything else useful"

"What exactly do you plan on doing?"

"That's not any of your business."

"So you're just making me do all of the work?"

Sabretooth growled at her.

Black Tiger knew what that meant, so she left to go do what he told her to, not wanting to anger him further. She decided the best thing to do was make sure Andrew Agrioli was in fact the guy behind this whole operation. She decided the best place to start would be to find out when the other mutants went missing, so she went to the library to look that up. It was the easiest way to find out what she wanted without talking to anyone. Three of the five mutants had all disappeared shortly after Agrioli had visited the town, the other two disappeared later probably when it was decided that their abilities would be useful, but that couldn't be determined unless he had someone still in the town reporting to him.

"Merde." She quickly called Sabretooth. "Agrioli probably has someone here spying on the town just in case there are other mutants with useful abilities here."

"Yeah I kind of figured that out."

"How exactly?"

"He was following me. I took care of it though."

"Well I'll just keep doing what I was doing then." She hung up on him then looked up anything she could about Agrioli. The main thing she was looking for was where he lived and when he will be there. It wasn't easy to find that kind of thing, but she did manage to find where the main headquarters of his company was, so that should help. After she found everything she possibly could on him she left. She followed her father's scent to find him.

While tracking him she passed by the police investigating an extremely mutilated body. It looked like news traveled fast in this town. "Looks like some kind of an animal attack." One of the officers said.

"No animal I've ever seen."

"It was probably one of the muties."

Black Tiger smirked at the racial slur, happy that the town wasn't as perfect as it seemed when she first arrived. Of course the other officer got on to his partner about what he said, but still it was the little things. She kept walking until she came across a small hotel. It was the only place for visitors to stay in this town. She went straight to the room Sabretooth was in. Her first instinct was to break the lock, but that probably wouldn't be a good idea, so she knocked. You know that thing that normal people do.

Sabretooth opened the door. "Find anything useful?"

"I don't think it's safe for us to stay in town for the night."

"Not what I asked you."

"Yes, I found where Agrioli's company is based. Chances are he lives near there."

"Alright," He handed her a key to one of the rooms. "Your room is next to mine."

"Okay, but the police found that guy you killed, and I it won't take long for them figure out that you killed him."

"I don't care about that. I can deal with the police if they come after me, plus it's late, and I'm not going on the road again when I'm tired." He closed the door before Black Tiger could argue any further.

Despite the fact that she was used to this kind of treatment, it still really bothered her. She looked at the time; it was nine pm, so maybe he did have a point about it being too late to go on the road again. It was still a little weird that he was going to bed so soon, but he probably planned on getting up very early. She went into her room not having anything better to do. She figured she should at least try to sleep if she was going to be woken up early, so she took off her jacket and threw it on the chair, took off her sunglasses, kicked off her shoes, then laid down.

Today was a long day for her, so one would think it would be easy to fall asleep, but that was unfortunately not the case. Sleeping was never exactly easy for her. It was hard to get to sleep, and when she did, she would often have nightmares making her not even want to fall asleep in the first place. Sometimes it would be so bad that she would go days without sleep before collapsing. Considering that tomorrow was probably going to be just as long, she did her best to get to sleep. After laying in bed for an hour she finally managed to fall asleep.

 _Everything is dark as she wanders around without a purpose. After awhile she comes across a body on the ground. It is horribly mutilated with his face slashed and a chunk of his throat missing. Her right hand has blood on it; she reaches up to her mouth with her left hand, and when she pulls it away there is blood on her fingers. She kicks the body away and moves on while wiping the blood on her mouth away._

" _What did you do?" She recognizes that voice and turns around. "You killed him."_

 _She doesn't say anything, what could she possibly say to her mother?_

" _What did you do to my daughter, you monster!?"_

" _Mom, it's me"_

" _No, don't call me that. You're not my daughter." She began backing away before turning around and running._

 _Kira stands there, hurt. No, she can't just stand there; she needs to keep moving, so she starts walking again. As she moves something around her ankle stops her, she looks down and sees a shackle. She quickly tries to get it off, but another one appears on her other leg, then her wrists. She starts panicking and thrashing in a desperate attempt to get them off. The shackles start pulling her down._

" _Get up."_

" _I can't"_

"Get up"

"I'm up." She said waking up. Black Tiger looked around and noticed she was on the floor, and Sabretooth was standing over her. "How did you get in here?"

"I broke the lock."

"Oh, right." She stood up and moved her hair out of her face and looked at the clock. Four am. "Let me just find my shoes. They're under this mess somewhere." She motioned toward all of the sheets in the floor.

"Be in the lobby in five minutes." He left the room.

She threw the sheets on the bed, and found her shoes. She quickly put them on then grabbed her jacket and sunglasses then headed to the lobby. Sabretooth was at the front desk when she got there.

He finished checking out. "Alright, kid, let's go."

They left the strange town shortly after, and drove to the city where Agrioli's company was based. The trip took several hours. Since Black Tiger already knew where the building was it easy to find, and they managed to get there in time to see Agrioli enter the building. "Are we going to get him now, or wait 'til he's alone?"

"The sooner the better."

"I'll get a go get a good look at his security." She got out of the car. While walking over to the building her phone started playing the Golden Girls theme song. She answered it. "Hey...Where is it?...I'd rather not see you get ripped apart by raptors...We're following a different lead...Don't do anything stupid, okay." Deadpool hung up on her.


	7. Savage

The savage land, a prehistoric tropical jungle in the middle of Antarctica where every prehistoric extinct species are somehow able to live together despite the fact that some of these animals are from the ice age and thus should not be able to live in a tropical climate, but who cares about logic when you can relive your favorite scene from a now scientifically inaccurate movie, and that is after all exactly why Deadpool came here. (That and saving some people from mad scientist drug dealers or something, he wasn't really paying attention to that part.) All that mattered in this moment, to him at least, was that he was hunting down velociraptors.

While Wolverine and Storm were looking for where the mutant's were being held, Deadpool sneaked off to fulfill his fantasy, confident they wouldn't care that he was gone. In fact he was sure Wolverine would be overjoyed at his sudden absence. He was in stealth mode while looking for what he assumed a velociraptor should look like. When Deadpool came across a two foot tall feathered dinosaur, he assumed it was some weird prehistoric bird. Deadpool would have just ignored it, but then it proceeded to mock him. At least he thought it was mocking him. It was probably just Pool-o-vision™.

"I was saving this for the raptors, but you'll do." He pulled out his rifle and carefully took aim. While aiming he heard something approach him from the side. He turned around to see another of the prehistoric bird things. It looked like it was ready to attack him. He looked between it and the one he was aiming at. "Oh I see what's going on here, I mean...Clever girl." And that was how Deadpool learned what Velociraptors really looked like. _Tune in next time kids when Deadpool learns about lions and how they don't sound like they do in movies._

As fun as being attacked by velociraptors was Deadpool did have to get back to that other thing. Evading them was difficult, but after climbing up a tree and taking a few shots at them, the pack decided he wasn't worth it. He still waited a few minutes to be sure before he got down from the tree and went to find Storm and Wolverine.

"I think we should go in with stealth and take them out one by one, and then free the mutants." Wolverine suggested. "They won't know what hit them." He reasoned.

"No, if we take them out one by one, it won't be long before they figure out something is wrong." Storm turned down his suggestion.

"Then what do you have in mind?"

"We need to hit them hard. Hold on to something." She told the other two. They listened, having an idea of what she was going to do. The wind started to increase and the sky became darker as clouds gathered overhead. Lightning struck the generators, knocking out the power. Hail came down next, and with the strong winds, it damaged the guard towers, the fence, and the building itself. The wind slowed to a stop, but the dark clouds remained in the sky.

"That was the coolest thing I've ever seen, now wait, second, no um, top ten, definitely top ten." Deadpool commented. "So now what? Do we just storm in there or what?"

"Yes, but be ready for anything, and no lethal force."

"No promises," Deadpool quickly pulled out his guns and ran toward the building. "Leeeeerrrrrroooooy Jeeeeeeeenkiiins." But because the people inside saw what happened the main door was shut, stopping Deadpool in his tracks. "F*** you, door...why am I being censored?"

Wolverine and Storm were following him close behind, so the door was only a temporary obstacle. Wolverine sliced around the lock then kicked the door open allowing Deadpool to continue his charge. There were only a few guards inside since the compound was designed to keep mutants in, and most of the security was automated. Since Storm knocked out the power all of the cell doors were open, and the most of the mutants within were already out, including Emma, who had telepathically knocked out the scientists and the rest of the staff. "I was starting to think you didn't even want to rescue me."

"Well I got out voted." Wolverine said.

"Good thing your vote never counted for much."

"Fight, fight, fight. Kiss, kiss, kiss." Deadpool promptly got punched in the face for that.

Storm looked in each individual cell, to make sure all of the captive mutants were out. She found that one wasn't. She had pink skin and hair, and was being kept under constant sedation. If Storm had to guess she would say this was the teleporter. She took off the machine that was keeping her sedated then carried her out of the room. "I don't know how long it will be before she wakes up." She told Wolverine while handing the young mutant to him. "Start taking everyone to the blackbird. When you get there call Professor Xavier, and tell him to have the mansion ready for some guests until we can help them get home."

"What about these guys? They're obviously workin' for someone"

"They are." Emma confirmed. "I don't know who he is, but there might something about him on file."

"We will look at that while Logan-"

"Actually," Deadpool interrupted. "I think that might be the different lead Kira mentioned."

Storm's eyes widened. She should have known Sabretooth would want to go straight for the man behind this. What he did was wrong, yes, but that didn't mean he deserved to die, especially not by the hands of someone as cruel as Sabretooth.

"I say we let Creed kill him." Emma chimed in, having sensed what Storm was feeling.

"No, that would go against what the X-men stand for." Storm shot her suggestion down. "Wade, call Kira, and see if that is in fact the lead she is following, and if her father is going to kill him, see if you can get her to stop him."

"Okay, but you realize there is like zero signal here, right?"

"The blackbird has a satellite phone you can use."

"I'm not sure if she'll answer a number she doesn't know, but okay." He left hurrying after Wolverine.

When Deadpool got to the blackbird, Wolverine had already finished his phone call and was getting the jet ready for takeoff. "Where's Storm, and Frost?"

Deadpool shrugged. "I guess there's still something they need to do in the compound. I need to call Kira."

"What for?"

"Storm told me to try to convince her to stop Sabretooth from killing someone."

"That ain't gonna help."

"You don't think Kira can stop him?"

"I don't think she'd even be willing to try." 

"Just because she's needlessly hostile towards you, and probably everyone else now that I think about it, doesn't mean she's such a terrible person that she would just stand by and let Sabretooth brutally murder someone."

"I'm not saying she won't be willing to do it because she's a terrible person. I'm saying she won't be willing to do it because, from what I've seen at least, she's afraid of him." Wolverine wanted to also mention his doubts about Black Tiger having any morals, but he knew how upset that would make Deadpool, and as much as Deadpool annoyed him, he didn't want to upset him with something like this.

"Well, I bet if I can convince her it's the right thing to do she'll try to overcome her fear to do it."

"Of course she will."

Deadpool grabbed the satellite phone and called Black Tiger. She answered right away. "Who are you, and how did you get my number?"

"Kira, it's me, Wade."

"I take it all went well then?"

"Um, sort of. Like we rescued the captured mutants, but we don't know who's behind the whole thing."

"Don't worry about it. It's taken care of."

"Is he dead?"

"Not yet, no. Wait about an hour, though."

"Or, now here's a fun idea, you can stop Sabretooth from killing him."

"Give me one good reason why I should."

"Because it's the right thing to do."

"Ha, you've been hanging out with the X-Men to long. If it was you here you'd kill him."

"That doesn't make it right. Look Storm said he shouldn't be killed, so I think that's the right thing to do this time."

"You're still going to have to come up with a better reason."

"Why isn't that a good enough reason?"

"Wade, you clearly don't know me as well as you think you do. Something very important you should know is that I'm a monster. I always have been" She didn't say that with a hint of self loathing, like one would expect when someone like Wolverine says that, but there also wasn't a hint of pride, like one would expect when someone like Sabretooth says it. She said like it was just a simple fact.

"Have you even tried being something else?"

"A few times. It always ended terribly. Eventually I just stopped even trying."

"So, you quit."

"No, it's more complicated than that."

"Nothing complicated about quitting. Quitter."

"I see what you're trying to do, but why not I'll humor you on this one."

"Does this mean I win?"

"We'll see." She hung up on him.

"Good news, I think, I'm going to assume it is."

"Great" Wolverine responded. He still didn't think she would do it, but really only time would tell. Emma and Storm made it to the blackbird, so Wolverine took off. "What were you doing, that made you take so long?"

"We were going through their files, and their minds to find their boss." Storm answered.

"You find him?"

"Yes, we will go there, after dropping the others off at the mansion."

"That won't be necessary." Someone from the back said. It was the teleporter, Clarice. She had woken up and had heard enough of what was going on to know that the sooner the X-men could find the man behind this the better. "Start going to where the man behind this is, as soon as my head's clear I can take everyone in the back to your school."

"Do you know where it is?" Storm asked her.

"I've wanted to go there for awhile now, so yeah I know where it is."

"Sounds like a plan then. Where am I going, Storm?" Wolverine asked.

Storm told Wolverine where to go, so he flew there. It wasn't long before Clarice completely recovered and was able to teleport everyone to the mansion, leaving Storm, Wolverine, Emma, and Deadpool. Even though they could get there much faster now, they were still relying on Black Tiger to keep Agrioli alive until then.


	8. The Question of Morality

Black Tiger hung up the phone. She really had to think about this. On the one hand she knew what would happen if she went against her father. On the other, she didn't want to lose a friend over something as trivial as this. Either way she had something to lose, but she had nothing to gain. It wasn't an easy decision, so she needed something else to take into consideration. Deadpool wanted her to stop Sabretooth because of morality, so she might as well take morals into consideration to figure out what to do. That said she wasn't going to keep someone from being killed just because someone else said it was the right thing to do.

She refused to figure this out while hiding in an elevator shaft though, so she started to make her way out. She managed to find an empty elevator going up and went in through the top hatch. Her phone vibrated, and she answered. "I've been almost everywhere in the building and haven't raised anyone's suspicions."

"Good, I'm coming in then."

That didn't give her much time to figure this out. She pressed the button for the floor Agrioli was on. She intended to make him tell her why he should live. If he could come up with a good reason, then she would help keep him alive, if not she would kill him herself. Either way she would technically be fulfilling what was asked of her, so it was a win-win.

The elevator made it to the floor, and she exited heading straight for her destination. A secretary was waiting in front of Agrioli's office. "Do you have an appointment?" She asked seeing Black Tiger's intention of going into the office.

"Don't need one." Black Tiger responded without even slowing down. She entered the office and locked the door behind her.

Naturally Andrew Agrioli heard her come in, and he looked up from his computer. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" He asked his hand already reaching over to his phone to call security.

"Most people know me as Black Tiger. You should know someone else is on their way up here with the intent to torture then kill you."

Agrioli had heard of her before from some of his associates. He personally found the idea of hiring a mercenary to be distasteful, but he never bothered talking his associates out of it either. That said he was sure Black Tiger was here because someone hired her to kill him. "I find it hard to believe that it's **someone else** with that intent."

Black Tiger rolled her eyes. She didn't have time to explain everything she saw wrong with that sentence. "Sabretooth is that someone else. You know that mutant you tried and failed to capture."

Panic briefly showed on his face, but he quickly composed himself. "How do you know about that?"

"Not important right now. What is important is slowing him down and getting you to safety."

"Fine." He alerted security to Sabretooth's presence. He had no idea how much that would slow him down, but it was better than nothing. "I take it you actually have a plan to get me to safety."

"Obviously." She led him to the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor.

"Your plan is the elevator?"

"He can track you to the elevator, but to know which floor you went to he has to go to each individual floor." She explained. "What exactly was your reason for trying to capture Sabretooth anyway?"

"I was going to replicate his healing factor to use as a cure for any ailment."

The elevator made it to the top floor, and Black Tiger led Agrioli to the staircase and took him up to the roof. "What about the other mutants you captured?"

"Seriously how do you know about all of this?"

"I know a guy who is friends with the X-Men. Now answer the question."

"The other mutants also had abilities that would be beneficial to mankind as a whole."

"Interesting idea, your goal is to help as many people as possible. It shouldn't matter if you have to intrude on the rights of a few individuals if your goal is met."

"Precisely, you understand."

"The X-Men freed the mutants you had captive. Probably destroyed the facility too."

"I can start over. I'll just be more careful."

"Not if you're put on trial for your crimes. No matter what the outcome."

"True, even if the verdict is 'not guilty' the X-Men and other heroes will be watching me closely." He thought about this new predicament carefully. "There would have to be a way to keep the trial from happening."

"There is one way to keep it from happening. Keep your company from being connected to it, you're the only one who will take the fall, and someone else can continue what you were doing."

"That would work, but there's still a chance I could be connected back to it."

"Not if you were dead." Black Tiger suggested nonchalantly.

"What?"

"Your goals can still be completed if you're dead." 

"That's true, but I don't want to die."

"That's selfish. Why are you okay sacrificing others for your goals but not yourself?"

"I thought you were here to protect me." Agrioli said clearly dodging the question.

Black Tiger decided there was no point in arguing with him when the end result was still going to be her killing him. The way she saw it, she was doing him a favor, both by making sure his goals would be accomplished in the long run, and by keeping him from being a hypocrite. "I never actually said that." She figured the best way to do this would be to throw him off the building.

Agrioli started running as soon as he figured Black Tiger wasn't there to protect him. Unfortunately for him Black Tiger was much faster than he was, so she managed to catch up to him quickly and grabbed him lifting him off the ground. "I'll pay you not to do this, just name your price."

"I actually kind of liked you up until now. That tends to be the last words of most people I kill. Do you have any idea how boring that is? Try to come up with something better. I usually don't give this offer to people, so make it count."

"You are, without a doubt in my mind, the worst kind of person."

"See, that wasn't hard." She gave him a genuine smile then threw him off the building.

Sabretooth made it onto the roof shortly after this. He looked around, but didn't see Agrioli. "Where is he?"

"He fell." Black Tiger motioned toward the ledge she threw him off.

"What do you mean he fell?"

"He was on the roof, then he took a one way trip to the ground."

"Did you have anything to do with that one way trip?"

"Yes."

"You better have a very good reason for that."

"Depends on your definition of good reason."

"You don't have a good reason then. Typical."

"Since when do you care about me not having a reason to kill someone?"

"I don't. What I care about is the fact that you took my kill."

"I didn't see your name-" Before she finished her sentence Sabretooth grabbed her throat and slammed her against the ground. She started digging her claws into his arm in an attempt to get him to let go. Not only was he not fazed by it, but it he decided to return the favor. He slowly started stabbing his claws into her throat. "S-st" She tried speaking, but she only managed to choke on the blood filling her throat.

"I can't understand you. Try to speak clearer."

Black Tiger pried his fingers from around her throat then kicked him away. She quickly got up and pulled her knife out. She coughed up the blood that was still in her throat while it started healing. She could feel her heart racing, and the hand holding the knife was shaking a bit. She took deep breaths to calm herself then took a defensive stance. She quickly came up with a plan. She didn't think she stood an actual chance against him in a straight up fight. She took a few steps back, so she was closer to the edge of the roof.

Sabretooth immediately saw what she was up to; he found it hilarious and started laughing. "Seriously? That's your plan? You're hoping I'll charge at you with enough momentum that you'll be throwing me off the roof. I can't believe you actually thought you could outsmart me."

She said nothing. He was of course right about the reason she was so close to the edge, but what he didn't take into account was that she accounted for that. Since he knows the risk of her using his momentum against him like that it meant he would come at her slower which would give her more time to react. Her plan was to get to the other side of the roof and jump down to a lower roof from there. It was safer than jumping all the way down, and it would put more distance between them. She just had to stall him until the X-Men got there. Should be easy.

Since Sabretooth knew what her plan was, he knew how to get around it. He charged at her at full speed. When she tried to move out of the way he grabbed her, so they both fell off the building.

Black Tiger hit the ground head first, her skull cracked, and she blacked out.

When she came to she was in what appeared at first glance to be a hospital room, but upon further inspection it became clear that wasn't the case. There weren't any windows, the bed she was laying in wasn't anything like a normal hospital bed, and the door was an automatic sliding door. Though the biggest indicator was the fact that Deadpool was in the room, because what sane person would ever let Deadpool in a hospital?

Deadpool noticed she was awake, and since she wasn't wearing her sunglasses he got to see her eyes for the first time. Her scleras were black, her irises were red, and her pupils were slits like a cat's or a snake's. Deadpool was shocked by them at first, but he'd also seen worse every time he looked in the mirror, so ultimately her eyes didn't really faze him. "Finally you're awake. You were out for a few hours. Which is kind of ridiculous. Though I guess between the brain damage, the fractured skull, and the possible infections you got, it does make sense so...not that ridiculous at all."

"Where are we, where are my sunglasses," She looked down and noticed she was wearing a white tank top and blue sweat pants. "And what happened to my clothes?"

"Okay so weird story. We got there like just when you hit the pavement then Storm hit your dad with lightning, then Wolverine was all like 'snikt bub' then he stabbed him a bunch of times, then Emma was like 'womp womp womp,' those are my telepathy noises by the way, and Sabretooth just sorta fell over I guess, and now he's in one of the X-men's cells, they have those apparently, and you're here in one of the rooms in their hospital wing, which they also have, apparently. Anyways your clothes were all bloody so they put you in something clean. Your sunglasses and phone are on the bedside table. They sort of confiscated your matches and knife though."

"Who changed me?" She asked. She didn't want anyone to see the scars on her stomach; since someone obviously did, she wanted to make sure it was someone who would never ask her about them.

"Storm."

"Is she the type of person who would pry into someone's private life?"

"I don't think so, no."

"Good." She grabbed her sunglasses and put them back on.

"You know you don't have to hide your eye's here, right? This is a safe place for mutants. No one's going to judge you."

"Yes they will. If not for my eyes then for something else."

"Is this about how Agrioli took a one way trip from a rooftop to the ground? Because they know you tried to stop Sabretooth from doing that. I mean why else would he do that to you?"

"You're right I won't worry about it." She got up from the bed. "I'm going to see if I can get my stuff back. After that we're leaving." She left the room with Deadpool following close behind. It didn't take her long to realize that she had no idea where she was going. "Um...you know this place better than I do. Could you lead the way?"

"Yeah, Xavier's office is this way." He led her there. "I think we'll get to leave quicker if you don't say anything about how naive you think Xavier is."

"But he is naive."

"Just don't say that. We'll be here all day with you trying to argue that."

"I wasn't planning on saying anything." They arrived at Xavier's office, and Black Tiger entered with no regard for what could possibly going on inside. "Hey Prof. I want my stuff back before I leave, which should be soon."

"I actually wished to talk to you before you left. Mr. Wilson, if you could wait outside please."

"Ooo, you're in trouble." Deadpool said before leaving.

"If this is about you trying to recruit me, the answer's no." Black Tiger said straight out.

"That's not what this about. This is about what happened between you and your father before the others arrived. What exactly happened?"

"I tried to stop dad from killing Agrioli, but he ended up dead anyway. There isn't really that much else to explain."

"I don't believe you're telling the whole story."

"The rest isn't important."

"I would still be interested to know what the rest is."

"Dad nearly killed me because I kept him from killing Agrioli. I don't think you would be interested in all of the gory details involved."

"Who actually killed him though?"

"You're actually one of the few people who know how to ask the right questions."

"Why did you do it?"

"It would be difficult to fully explain, but basically I figured that ultimately more people would benefit from if he were dead than if he were alive."

Xavier did a quick scan of her mind, so he could understand how she came to that conclusion. "You really thought you were doing the right thing."

"What are you going to do me now? Lock me up?"

"The thought did cross my mind, but I truly think you want to do the right thing. Your attempts are just misguided."

"I don't think I like where this is going."

"I'm offering to help you. All you have to do is let me guide you onto the right path. You don't have to give an answer now, but you should know I will be keeping an eye on you if you say no."

"So, I either accept your offer, or you just wait for an excuse to lock me up or kill me? You're definitely very persuasive." She sat back in her chair while she considered his offer. "Counter offer: I continue doing what's normal for me, but you don't keep an eye on me, in fact you'll continue on like before when you didn't even know I existed, because if you don't I'll let it slip that you're holding one of the most dangerous mutants here instead of turning him over to the proper authorities."

"Or, I could just lock you up in the cell next to his."

"Well played. Fine, my answer is no. Can I have my stuff back, so I can leave now?"

"If you ever change your mind, you're always welcome here." He reached into a drawer and pulled out her knife and matches. "You will be given your clothes back as soon as they're done being cleaned. That will be in about an hour."

She grabbed her knife and matches and left without saying anything. When she opened the door, it was clear that Deadpool had his ear pressed against the door in an attempt to eavesdrop. Black Tiger started panicking internally. "H-how much did you hear?"

"Well this door is so thick it all sounded extremely muffled, soooo nothing. I heard nothing. What was that all about anyway?"

"For some reason he thinks I need help."

Deadpool didn't say anything, which immediately worried Black Tiger.

"What?"

"Well, no offence, but you are kind of, y'know, a little kill happy at times. Like you've never gone so far as to slaughter a room full of people just because one guy pissed you off or anything, but you can still be pretty bad sometimes. I don't have a problem with it per say, but I can see why Xavier would say you need help."

"Kill happy?"

"What else was I going to say? That you have a murder boner?"

"Don't say that, ever. Just don't."

"Kill happy it is then."

"We have an hour to kill before we can leave. Any ideas for what we should so until then?"

"Well this is a school, so there's probably nothing fun to do." Deadpool trailed off a bit while saying that, and then he thought of something else. He would have to be very sneaky if he was going to get her agree. "You could always tell me about your childhood." He was so stealthy a ninja wouldn't even be able to match his stealth that's how stealthy he was.

"No."

"Come on you already know about mine, so it'd only be fair for me to know about yours."

She sighed. "Fine, you're allowed to ask one question about my childhood, so think about it as carefully as possible. Once you ask you are not allowed to change your mind, so you better not waste it."

Deadpool started thinking about that right away. He didn't want his one question to be just any question. He wanted it to be a question that she would have to give a lot of detail for, that way he could learn as much about her while still following her one question rule. He also wanted to be careful to make sure he didn't ask something that would have an answer she would end up regretting telling him about. It was probably going to take him awhile to come up with that perfect question, but that was fine. Black Tiger didn't give him a time limit, so he had all the time in the world to think about it.


End file.
